I've been looking at AWS RDS for my production-ready Postgres database, and the UI is showing a price of $1627/month for anything deemed suitable for production. This feels off to me, especially since I thought my costs would be around $100/month at most. Is it really necessary to go with such expensive instances for production?
5 Answers
If your app will have downtime periods, consider going with Aurora Serverless v2. It could be more cost-effective and would adjust based on demand, which might be a better fit for your situation.
Have you collected any metrics during your testing phase? Knowing your expected user volume can really help determine the right instance size. Plus, consider if a caching layer could help your architecture.
I usually see the default recommended production DB instance as db.m7g.large, which costs about $248.20/month. But remember, AWS tends to aim for larger customers, so if your needs aren't that big, you might only need a smaller instance. Running some load tests with your expected traffic could give you a clearer picture of what you need.
Just a heads up, AWS often pushes the idea that production requires HA clusters, but that's not always the case in reality. It feels like they're using scare tactics in their marketing. You might find non-HA options in the templates, so check those out. Just make sure you understand your own requirements before deciding.
It really depends on your app's size and usage. If you're still in the early stages and don't even know if your app will catch on, the high-cost options might be overkill. Starting small and skipping the HA features could save you money for now. But if your app has paying customers who need data security, then investing in HA might be wise.
Thanks for the tip! I'll definitely do some load testing to see what fits.